


A Better Place, A Better Time

by ToukoTai



Series: First Name: Agent [12]
Category: Red vs. Blue, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU of an AU, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Gen, Marvel Adventures: Avengers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 08:57:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3971851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToukoTai/pseuds/ToukoTai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agent Maine comes home. Or makes a home. Or really, agrees to share with Clint. And by agree, he means, moved in without telling or asking. So actually, Agent Maine just made himself at home adjacent to Clint's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Better Place, A Better Time

**Author's Note:**

> This is the happy AU freelancer era ending to First Name: Agent. It's an au of an au. In the actual AU the meta dies and maine doesn't come back. Just want to be clear on that. This was just a fun little happy writing thingy.

The man at Clint’s door is huge. Like a medium sized boulder decided to be human, huge.

“Uhhh…” Clint’s trails off, staring up and up at the man. “Hi.” He doesn’t really recognize the man in front of him, except everything about him, from the way he stands, to the scars on his arms and throat, to the way his huge hands grip the strap of a duffel bag, screams special forces. But since he had knocked, politely even, on the front door, and didn’t seem to be actively trying to kill Clint, he was willing to give the big guy a pass.

There’s an apartment on the floor below Clint’s that’s free. The man just signs an X on the signature line and Clint shrugs. The giant doesn’t talk, is mute, the scars around his neck and the hesitant way he signs lets Clint draw the conclusion that he wasn’t born mute.

 _Mission accident_ the giant signs at him. And then pretends he has no idea what Clint is signing back when he asks the man’s name.

 _You’ll figure it out._ He gets instead after the tenth time of asking.

Questions about what branch, or where he served or even when, were met with a highly amused expression and a _Classified_.

“I’ll have you know my security clearance is higher then God.” Well, not really, but it’s high enough to _know_ gods, and that’s gotta count for something. Whatever it counts for, Mister X is unimpressed with it and calls Clint’s bluff. Just raises an eyebrow and resigns a very adamant _Classified_.

Well, the guy seems completely present mentally and physically, probably emotionally too, not that Clint really wants to know. And he doesn’t seem to be packing any weapons of mass destruction on his person(but that was because he was a weapon of mass destruction.). So Clint lets him stay, shakes his hand, his palm swallowed in the giant’s and passes over the keys. Explains the rules of the complex and sees the man move in that afternoon.

 

Mister X, as Clint has taken to calling him, is unobtrusive. Stays in his apartment for the most part, goes out grocery shopping, gets furniture. Lives as quiet an existence below Clint as he is in person. Clint does catch him babysitting for Widow Burke, whose husband had died while on duty. And the big guy doesn’t seem to mind the toddler climbing all over him. Merely raises his eyebrows at Clint’s surprised expression. All in all, Clint leaves the mute giant to his own devices.

He’s still curious about who the man is. But running Mister X’s face through several different databases turns up exactly as many results as his fingerprints do: none. Which is very rare and puts Clint on edge, but the guy continues to do nothing more sinister then adopt a grey tabby kitten from the shelter down the street. (The kitten is distrustful of everyone who is not Mister X, hisses at Clint on principle, and has a dark brown collar with a tag that says CT. That really should have been a huge tip off but Clint hadn’t put it together. And who could blame him? The Meta had been dead for half a year at that point and CT for much longer.)

Clint would like to know Mister X’s name, so he can stop calling him Mister X. The man always gets this...not really a smile, he’s not sure he’s ever seen the giant smile, but his face gets less...severe when Clint calls him that. Almost like he’s laughing at Clint.

He’d like to know why that is and would like for the man to stop laughing at him for reasons Clint doesn’t know.

 

Clint does figure it out. A little late in the game, and certainly by cheating. He gets it like a kick to the skull when he sees Mister X fight. It’s a very distinctive style, Clint likes to refer to it as ‘Suicide Death Charge’.

 

The way it goes down is HYDRA decides to try and take Clint’s apartment building. Why, Clint has no idea. Unfortunately for them, they clearly had not counted on a six foot four, two hundred plus pound behemoth with more combat training then you could shake an arrow at, barreling up the staircase and quite literally plowing through HYDRA. Clint’s only seen one operative move like that. IE have such a complete disregard for his own safety when taking on the enemy in a partner setting. Not even _Steve_ is this suicidally insane.

Maine’s not wearing any armor, and doesn’t have any weapons, but that doesn’t seem to slow him down or give him pause. It also doesn’t seem to affect his performance, he’s just as effective and deadly as Clint remembers him. HYDRA, it appears, had never run into a Freelancer or at least, had never run into Maine(and lived to tell the tale.) because they are just as surprised as Clint is. But Clint recovers first, he’s been next to the Maine death charge before. He knows how to swing this.

“What the fuck, Maine?!” He yells, using an arrow as a makeshift knife, to hamstring an opponent, that HYDRA agent won’t be getting up anytime soon or ever really. Not under his own power anyway. Maine only grunts and nearly takes a HYDRA minion’s head off with a punch. Even without the armor, Maine is more soldier, more fighter, then any one person can handle. And HYDRA is so far out of its depth with Maine, it’s almost but not quite funny. “Seriously?!” The man doesn’t say anything, of course. Maine doesn’t talk, Clint has never known Maine to talk, and now he knows why. (Those scars in his neck, looking like bullet wounds, it’s a wonder he’s not dead.)

The fight is short and sweet. With plenty of groaning, half conscious bodies in the aftermath. The two stare at each other, Maine with a placid bemused air around him. Yeah, that fucker was totally laughing at Clint all the times earlier.

Clint sizes Maine up. Squints his eyes, imagines the white armor and orange dome helmet and the black under suit. Oh yeah, this is certainly Maine. The armor really hadn’t added any height or bulk to the man. Definitely added weight, he moved faster without the armor but didn’t have the same heft. Certainly wasn’t a problem though, the extra speed that a man of Maine’s size and weight shouldn’t possess more then made up for the loss of power.

But here’s the thing. According to first hand sources, aka _Agent fucking Washington_ and his merry band of misfits, the Meta, formerly known as Agent Maine, was tied to a jeep and thrown off a cliff. The Meta was dead, yet here stood Maine. Alive and sane and as well as can be for having just come out of a close quarters gunfight to which he hadn’t even bothered bringing a knife, let alone a gun.

 

“You’re not the Meta right?” Clint felt the need to clarify. Maine had the most offended look Clint had ever seen someone with minimal facial expressions make.

_**Not** the meta_

**_never again_ **

The vehemence with which Maine’s hands signed out the declarations, had Clint throwing his own hands up in a ‘I’m defenseless’ pose.

“Juuuuuust checking.” Clint said. That was definitely a grumpy huff or a hmph. “You’re not going to tell me how this came about are you?” Maine’s stare was so flat, Clint winced. “Yeah, I thought not.” Clint looked around at the groaning HYDRA henchmen filling the hallway. There were probably more downstairs, Maine was a Freelancer, and experience told Clint they never did a job halfway. If Maine had come up here, it was because he had handled the rest, having trusted Clint to be able to hold his own while he took care of the other waves.

Clint runs a hand down his face as he mentally goes over the things he has to do now. Fix the sections of the hallway where arrows, bullets and heads had gone through. Call the attack into SHIELD, get a clean up crew out here. Oh and call Wash to let him know his bff turned evil had swung back around into...well not good exactly, but neutral. Yes, neutral was the right term, Clint decided as Maine kicked a squirming minion back into unconsciousness.

“You know I’m going to have call Wash about this, right?” Clint figures it’s only fair to give him warning. Maine fixes him a look. “Don’t give me that. He’d destroy me if I didn’t. And while you terrify me, angry Washington terrifies me more.” Maine heaves a sigh and goes to vent his frustrations with the world at large on the remaining conscious HYDRA agents. Clint shakes his head as he calls the HYDRA attack into SHIELD. And while waiting for the clean up crew to arrive, with Maine sitting in silent annoyance on his couch, arms crossed over his large chest and face set in what was certainly not a pout. Clint steels himself for some high pitched screeching, and phones Agent Washington.


End file.
